#Dutch #government loves #WikiLovesMonuments

When a small country like the Netherlands runs the Wiki loves Monuments competition for three years in a row, you would think everything has been photographed. You would think that every monument has been described. Because of  the great cooperation with the governmenmental organisation for Cultural Heritage (RCE), it has been quite clear how many monuments there are; from the start there were lists compiled from its databases.

Obviously the RCE has its own photos of most of the monuments; they are used to do whatever is needed to maintain the necessary information. The RCE has been taking pictures for many years. Currently there are some 555.000 images in its collection. All of them are now available under the Creative Commons Attribution-Share Alike 3.0 NL license. All of them will be uploaded to Commons. 

With all these images available on Commons, this collection is available to people from all over the world who want to learn about the Dutch cultural heritage and its monuments. As this is a cooperation with the RCE, it comes with references to the RCE database where much more information can be found.

Some images like the one to the right show exceptional moments like the three pictures showing the hoisting of the church tower of the church in Bodegraven in April 1973 ( 1 2 3)

Add to the over half a million pictures from the RCE the pictures of Wiki loves Monuments and there is an obvious challenge; how to find the pictures of the same object. The good news is that the RCE numbers were available on the list.. A Commons picture of the tower in Bodegraven standing tall can be found here.

Combining all the related information is relatively easy to do in a database.. Maybe, one day Wikidata will be the platform making all these connections for us.

The RCE has given us a great gift, it is for us to use it and make it available in a usable way.
Thanks,
        GerardM

The story of the #Netherlands

The Netherlands has a rich cultural heritage, there are many buildings, museums, archives that show how the Netherlands changed over time. Buildings, waterworks, the documents, the paintings they represent the stories, the history of the Netherlands.

These stories need to be told and, told again. This is how an cultural awareness evolves. In this day and age, the Internet is the medium for telling stories. "Erfgoed Nederland" or Dutch Heritage has been the organisation who helped the Dutch GLAM get their message out.

As the global economy and the Dutch economy is making a turn for the worst, it has been announced that there will be no more money for telling our stories from 2013. This will isolate the Dutch museums, archives and libraries, it will become even harder to tell our story. The benefit of shared resources will disappear. Our cultural heritage will be marginalised and in this way becomes a target for further cutbacks.

The Dutch chapter has been really happy with its cooperation with Erfgoed Nederland. It will want to come up with a plan to make sure that the stories will still be told.
Thanks,
        GerardM

#Dutch expats want Dutch #movies

Almost all Dutch movies and series will be available on ximon.nl. It comes at a cost, but it is the same cost you pay at a rental. For expatiates however this is a God-send as the nearest rental store with Dutch films will likely be in Belgium or the Netherlands.

Getting the rights for all this material has been a big obstacle. For most recent material agreements exist and as always, it is the old material that proves to be a problem. At the moment almost half the pictures can be seen from abroad and this is expected to improve.

There is again some agitation to prevent illegal downloads in the Netherlands. The irony is that the film industry does still struggles to get its act together. What is the point of making something illegal when there is no legal alternative?
Thanks,
      GerardM

The new Renaissance is digital

#Europe's cultures have had a worldwide influence. An influence that can be observed worldwide in modern cultural expressions. European merchants brought curios from all over the world and consequently museums and archives have become a rich resource of mementos of all the worldwide cultures.

Jean Monet once said: "If Europe were to be reconstructed, I would begin with culture rather than the
economy". A renaissance is a rebirth and, the European Union recognises the fact that the Internet is where many of the new cultural manifestations take place. The classic cultures had their renaissance after hundreds of years after their demise. A report commissioned by the European Commission called "The New Renaissance" discusses how our cultural heritage can be given a new lease of life, how it can become part of a worldwide renaissance of Culture.

The original renaissance happened after many of the classical artefacts were damaged or destroyed. This European report recognises that something similar may happen. It may happen when our archives, our museum collections are not digitised but also when copyright orphans are excluded because of the FUD that surrounds them.

Europeana plays an important role in the European strategy. It is therefore stellar to read that the European cultural heritage is to be accessible to the greatest number of people without distinction or barrier. Language is such a barrier and it is therefore really relevant that the initial localisation of Europeana at translatewiki.net now includes simplified Chinese. You will also find European languages like Macedonian, Serbian, Breton and Luxembourgian that will be new to Europeana.

When you are interested in the European vision on the riches its museums and archives contain, you will find this document a "must read".
Thanks,
      GerardM

#Monuments on the map

Bergen is a small town in the Netherlands. And it has many nice old buildings, some of them are even earmarked as "cultural property". According to the The Hague convention (1954), such properties should not be damaged in a military conflict and are not to be used for military purposes..

In the Netherlands we call them "monuments", they are buildings of any type: churches, bars, farms, bridges... They are typically tagged with the blue and white shield.

Monuments in Bergen NH

There are public lists of Dutch monuments. These found their way into our projects and as this information comes with geo-location, it was an obvious next step for Multichill to produce an overlay with monuments for Google earth.

This is an obvious first step to visualise what monuments need pictures and articles.. Given the success of previous cultural heritage projects, this new ambitious project will generate lots of fun.
Thanks,
     GerardM

Monuments and the Dutch #Wikipedia

When the Brits and the Ruskies invaded the Netherlands in 1799, they fought and lost the battle of Bergen. Much of the fighting was close to the ruins of a church that was fired during the Dutch Revolt.

This church is earmarked as a monument, and given that Bergen is a really nice town, it stands to reason that more monuments can be found in that area. At this moment I have a map of Bergen with one monument..

On the Dutch Wikipedia there is a heritage project that evolved from a mill project. The members of the project are ambitious and want to have articles and pictures of all Dutch monuments. They want high quality data and they want to put all monuments of Bergen on the map as well.

When you are that ambitious, it makes sense to involve the Dutch chapter and, learn how we can do this effectively. Yesterday there was a meeting of interested people brain storming, planning how to make this a big thing .. This story will be continued..
Thanks,
GerardM

"Heritage 2.0"

Erfgoed 2.0 is a Dutch blog about how GLAM's make use of the tools provided by what is called "Web 2.0". Many of the subjects discussed are fascinating and they help me understand what a GLAM is and how GLAM people think and operate.

Often I wonder how it would be when we used "social functionality", gaming or rewards in projects like Wikipedia or Commons. One project I came across was MapIt1418, this website invites people to geo tag pictures of the Dutch National Archive about the first world war.

As people in many countries have an interest in the first world war, it is a sad omission that the software is only available in Dutch. The good news is that the software is available under an open source license, so the National Archive may invest in the internationalisation and, it may end up being localised at translatewiki.net. Alternatively, other GLAMs can collaborate in making the software internationalised.

MapIt1418 invites people to geo tag the pictures and this makes it into a challenge, every month a prize can be won which is a quality print of one of the photos featuring on the website.
Thanks,
GerardM